


Flux It

by GingerTodgers



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Chubby Neville, F/M, Fat positive, Gardens & Gardening, Hints of Drarry, Hogwarts Greenhouses, Humour, Invisibility Cloak, Secret Identity, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 21:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13644657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GingerTodgers/pseuds/GingerTodgers
Summary: At first Neville thought that the invisible person haunting Greenhouse Two was Draco Malfoy.





	Flux It

**Author's Note:**

> So many 'thank yous' to the truly wonderful nerdherderette for giving this such a quick yet thorough and enthusiastic beta! Also thank you to the drarry discord who got me shipping Neville/Pansy and cheered me on when I kept getting stuck.

 

At first Neville thought that the invisible person haunting Greenhouse Two was Draco Malfoy. Except “haunting” probably wasn’t the right word because Neville was fairly sure that ghosts didn’t feel pain and the person in Greenhouse Two kept bumping into things.

“What about emotional pain?” Luna was sitting cross-legged on the wooden bench that usually held Neville’s Hellebore cuttings. Instead of resting neatly in their trays, the cuttings were now orbiting Luna’s head as she spun her wand in lazy circles. “If ghosts can’t feel physical pain, can they feel emotional pain?”

“I... don’t know.” It was the kind of question that Neville was sure someone else would find fascinating. Maybe one of the Ravenclaws. Or Hermione. But Neville wasn’t a Ravenclaw, and he wasn’t Hermione, and he wanted to talk about the invisible person in Greenhouse Two — not the emotional turmoil of Peeves. “That was when I first noticed them,” he said, deciding to press on. “They kept banging their elbows off the seedling shelves.”

“How do you know it was their elbows?”

“Well,” Neville fought off a wave of unease. “What else would it be?”

“I’m not sure. What other body parts stick out?” Luna blinked slowly.

“I...” Neville was so horrified at the direction of the conversation that he almost missed Luna’s sly smile. “Oh flux you, Lovegood,” he laughed. “It was their elbows. Or their knees. Nothing else, alright?”

Still smiling, Luna held up her hands in submission. The gesture sent all the Hellebore cuttings rocketing towards the ceiling.

“Do they only appear in Greenhouse Two?” Luna asked as she helped Neville collect the last of the escaped cuttings.

“Yeah, and only when Harry comes to visit. S’why I thought it might be Draco.”

“Is that why we’re in here today?”

The “here” Luna was referring to was Greenhouse One, the bigger and busier of the Hogwarts greenhouses. There was currently a Second Year Herbology class occupying the front of the greenhouse and a few NEWT students were examining a wilted Puffapod. Given the choice, Neville preferred the quiet of the much smaller Greenhouse Two and he sighed as the Mandrake bell rang to indicate that everyone should put on their earmuffs.

“It’s not that I mind them being in there, the invisible person,” Neville clarified as he and Luna walked up to the castle for lunch. “Nothing wrong with someone looking for a bit of peace and quiet but...”

“But should you tell Harry?”

“Yeah, if Draco is spying on him it seems like Harry would want to know.”

“Hmm,” Luna’s eyes were scanning the crowd. “Maybe wait until you are sure. It would be a shame to get Harry’s hopes up.”

“What?” The idea that Harry had hopes to dash when it came to Draco caused Neville to stop in his tracks. The lunchtime crowd surged around him, sweeping Luna forward into the hall and out of sight.

“Watch out.” Someone bumped into Neville’s back and he felt a sharp pain in his left leg.

“What the flux?” He turned to find a very red-faced Pansy glaring up at him.

“Sorry,” she said, shoving a lethal pair of knitting needles deeper into her bag. “Accident.”

“It’s ok,” he started to say, only to be jostled by Ernie.

“Move it,” Ernie snapped, eyes glued to his book. Neville opened his mouth to protest but Pansy got there first, stepping directly in front of Ernie and holding the tip of her wand to his book.

“Apologise,” she said.

“What are you doing?” Ernie attempted to pull the now-smoking book away from Pansy’s wand. Without really thinking about it, Neville found himself reaching out to hold the book in place.

“I said, apologise,” Pansy’s mouth was pressed into a thin line. She looked scared.

“Why the fuck should I apologise to that fat-”

“Not fast enough,” Pansy flicked her wand and the book exploded, showering the three of them with charred pieces of paper.

“You... you...” Ernie stood, mouth opening and closing.

“I’m sorry.” Pansy’s voice was stiff. “I promised myself I wouldn’t stand by while... I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Pansy’s apology seemed to act like a jolt of electricity to Ernie. “You’re sorry? You know who burnt books? Nazis. That’s who.”

Both Pansy and Neville flinched. The mandatory re-education programs after the war had provided extensive coverage of the Muggle Death Eaters.

“I’m not...”

“You fucking are.”

“You were being mean-”

“And who are you to decide that?” Ernie was almost screaming.

“Look, you’re right,” Neville finally found his voice as he stepped between Pansy and Ernie. “She doesn’t get to punish you for being an alihosky.”

“Nev?” Ernie blinked up at him. “Where did you come from? Did you see what she did?”

“Yes,” Neville sighed, rubbing his face as he realised that Ernie had been too absorbed in his book to notice that it was Neville he’d bumped into. “I’m the “fat” whatever the rest of your sentence was.” He watched as confusion, realisation, and then horror chased themselves across Ernie’s face.

“Nev, mate. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you, I-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Neville waved him off. “No one behaved well here so let’s leave it, yeah?” He returned Ernie’s grateful nod, watched him scurry off, and then turned to find that Pansy had disappeared as well.

*** 

“Alright Nevlad? Fancy a fly-about?” Stephen caught up with Harry and Neville as they were unlocking Greenhouse Two.

“Not now. Thanks,” said Neville, glaring as Harry turned his back to Stephen and mouthed _“Nevlad?”_

“Another time then, mate. We’re going for a run later,” Stephen indicated a group of Eighth Years waiting at the bottom of the lawns. “‘S a Muggle thing. Good for keeping fit.” His eyes flicked down to where Neville’s pre-Carrows belly was making a comeback. “You should come too.”

“Ta but no ta.” Neville gave up on the keys and Alhombra’d the lock.

“You sure? Might help you shift a bit of that- ow what the fuck?” Stephen glanced around wildly, rubbing his left arsecheek. “Did you see that? Someone hexed me.”

“Probably because you were being a twat, _Stevlad,_ ” Harry grinned.

“Fuck off, Potter. You think just because you- seriously, what the fuck?” Another volley of hexes erupted out of thin air and sent Stephen scurrying away.

“Well,” said Harry.

“Yeah, he’s really keen on that running business,” Neville smiled, making sure to leave the Greenhouse door slightly ajar. Soft material whispered across his hand as the invisible hexer squeezed past.

They spent the next hour trimming the Niffler’s Fancy, Harry following Neville’s lead as he pulled out the drying racks and made sure the leaves weren’t overlapping.

“How do you know this stuff?” Harry eventually asked, leaning against the bench as Neville arranged the last of the leaves. “What all the plants need and when to do it.”

“I read.”

“But it’s more than that, isn’t it? There’s so many plants in here.” Harry waved a hand to indicate the whispering, rustling greenhouse. “If you got it all from books, you’d always have them in hand.”

“Plants are easy,” Neville shrugged. “Most of them will tell you what they need. The books tell you the rest.”

“Right.” Harry shook his head, grinning. “Easy. Well, guess we could all do with a bit of that.”

“Yeah,” Neville frowned. In the corner of his eye he saw a pot tumble off the shelf, only to stop mid-fall before floating gently down towards the floor. “Have you still got your dad’s invisibility cloak?”

“Hmm? Yeah, in my trunk. Do you want to borrow it?”

“No, it’s alright. Just... the trunk in the dorm? Aren’t you worried someone’s going to try and nick it?”

“Not really. Bill Weasley helped me rig a charm for it-”

“Potter?” The question sent Harry spinning around, his hand reaching up to mess with his hair.

“Alright Malfoy?”

Draco was standing in the doorway, his eyes darting from Neville to Harry.

“Are you coming to Potions?” he asked.

“Is it that time already?” Harry was already quickly gathering up his stuff, patting Neville absentmindedly on the shoulder as he hurried past. “See you later, Nev.”

“See you.”

Neville waited until Harry and Draco had disappeared before gingerly lowering himself to the floor. Professor Sprout kept a couple of camping stools next to the kettle in Greenhouse One, but Greenhouse Two didn’t have room for much more than the plants.

Pulling the biscuit tin out from behind one of the benches, Neville Scourgified his hands and selected a jammie dodger. It was a bit stale.

“I know you’re here,” he said, dusting the biscuit crumbs from his hands. Silence. “Alright, keep your secrets.” He had another biscuit and then climbed to his feet, turning back to the seedlings.

***

Later, on his way back to the castle, Neville caught up with Pansy. She was dawdling by the path from the greenhouses, picking up her pace as he drew level with her.

“I’m sorry about Ernie,” she said.

“Hello to you, too.”

“Yes, hello Longbottom, I just want to-”

“Call me Neville, for flux sake,” he interrupted her. “And don’t worry about Ernie.”

“What is that?” she jogged forward a few steps and turned to face him, blocking his path.

“What’s what?”

“ _For flux sake_.” She sank her voice to a deeper pitch. It wasn’t a very good impersonation.

“It’s swearing. Muggle swearing.”

“That’s not Muggle swearing.” She crossed her arms. “They say ‘fuck,’ and...and...and ‘shit’.”

“Not all of them,” he pointed out. “Some people don’t like swearing. I’m one of them.”

“So why do it?” Her arms were still crossed but she relaxed her posture a bit, her dark eyes blinking up at him in the twilight’s gloom.

“Look; I’m hungry, and the dinner bell’s gone off twice. Do you mind if we…?” he gestured towards the castle.

“What? Oh, alright.” She fell into step beside him, arms wrapped loosely around her own waist.

“Swearing is a bit like punctuation,” Neville said, feeling his way for the right words. “It’s a good way to make a point, or to draw attention to something. People don’t always hear what they need to; they need...”

“Direction?”

“Kind of; a bit more like sending up sparks. Like, ‘This is the important part of the sentence, pay fluxing attention.’” He felt a small surge of pride as her lips twitched into a smile. They were nearly at the castle.

“You like swearing, but you don’t like swearing.”

“Right. So I came up with my own swear words.”

“How?”

“Plants.”

“What?”

“I used the names of plants. You know...” he felt himself grinning down at her, “plants that I like. Muggles always seem to make swear words out of things that they like.”

“Not really.” They had reached the doorway to the Great Hall, near where the Ernie incident had taken place. “‘Fuck’ and ‘fucking’ make sense,” Pansy continued, smiling back at him. “And ‘arse,’ I suppose. But what about ‘shit?’ Or ‘crap?’”

“Really? You don’t enjoy doing that every now and then?”

“Disgusting.” She was still smiling.

“Well,” he shrugged, wondering if he should look away. Or talk about something other than faeces with the rather pretty woman who couldn’t seem to stop smiling at him. “Got to live up to the family name.”

“Even more disgusting.” She nodded towards the hall. “Well, I should go. Goodbye Longbubotuber.” Neville was still laughing when he sat down at the Gryffindor table. 

***

“How’s it going with Hannah?” Ginny held Neville’s mug of tea to his lips so that he could take a sip without losing his grip on the Knotgrass.

It had been nearly a week since Neville had discovered that the invisible person was not Draco Malfoy. He was fairly certain that they were another Eighth Year; Invisibility Magic without an artifact took a significant level of charmwork to maintain, but other than that-

“Oy.” Ginny nudged his thigh with the toe of her grubby trainer. “Hannah? How goes it?”

“Hmm? Yeah, alright I think. She said she’ll help me with the Wolfsbane harvesting next month.” Neville’s knees were starting to twinge from where they were pressing into the concrete floor. He winced slightly as the Knotgrass nipped at his fingers. The pain was almost enough to distract him from the way the floor softened beneath him. “Oh, was that you?” He twisted around to look at Ginny.

“Was what me?”

“The Cushioning Charm?”

Ginny shook her head. Behind her left shoulder a section of the greenhouse shimmered and then settle back into place.

“Must have imagined it,” said Neville, smiling slightly at the place where he imagined the invisible person’s face to be.

“Right. So ‘helping you with the harvesting’ is herbologist speak for...” Ginny waggled her eyebrows at Neville. The green-tinted sunlight played across her face, making her hazel eyes look almost golden. It was, Neville realised, very easy to remember what being in love with Ginny had felt like. “Neville?”

“No, it’s just harvesting.” He gestured for her to give him another sip of tea and turned back to the Knotgrass.

***

The previous evening, Hannah and Neville had been curled up on the shared common room sofa when Stephen thumped down next to them. He mimed that it was a tight squeeze as Neville put cushions on the floor to make room.

“Oh, don’t,” Hannah had laughed. “Not all of us want to go chasing all over the castle grounds.”

“Your body will thank you for it,” said Stephen, eyes lingering on Hannah’s hips.

“It will not! I’ve been sitting here on my arse eating Chocolate Frogs all afternoon.” Hannah was smiling but as Stephen shook his head and waved a finger playfully in her direction, Neville found himself surreptitiously shoving some of the Frog wrappers behind a cushion.

“Got to sweat those toxins out,” Stephen was saying as Hannah nodded seriously. “It’s all about-”

“Do give it a rest, Stephen,” Pansy interrupted. She’d come in with Draco, who was now making a beeline for Harry. Her cheeks were pink; there was a leaf caught in her hair, and she flushed even pinker as Neville gestured to it.

“There’s nothing wrong with being healthy,” said Stephen. “Keeping in shape.”

“What shape?” Pansy snapped. “No matter how much you may crave conformity you really must learn to accept that we do not all want to look the same.” Her eyes darted to Neville and then away again.

“Let’s talk about something else,” Neville suggested.

“Good idea. Are you going to Hogsmeade this weekend?” Hannah addressed the question to Pansy, who visibly softened.

“Yes, I’m hoping to. And you?”

“Maybe.” Hannah smiled at Neville. “If someone gets around to asking me.”

“Fuck this.” Stephen stood, glaring at Pansy. “Caring about my health doesn’t make a me a bad person.” With that, he stomped over to the other side of the common room.

“Just a boring one,” Pansy called after him.

“He’s not that bad,” Hannah said, trying to smooth things over. “We could all probably do with being a bit more careful about our...” She very carefully avoided looking at Neville. “About our weight, and making sure we eat healthily, and… you know.”

“Don’t start.” Neville raised a hand to forestall whatever Pansy was about to say. “Who are you going to Hogsmeade with?”

“Ginny,” said Pansy, still scowling.

“Right. We’re off, Nevlad.” Stephen had returned. He was pointedly not looking at Pansy. “Going to have a quick fly before bed. Have a good one, yeah?”

“Yeah, have a good one,” said Neville. He tried to tune back into Pansy and Hannah’s conversation, but gave up when they started talking about where Pansy should take Ginny at the weekend.

Heading to bed, Neville tried not to think about the way Stephen had looked at him when they were talking about keeping in shape. The way Hannah had avoided his eyes as she talked about healthy eating. He especially tried not to think about how Pansy had looked terrified from the first moment she walked into the common room.

It was a long night.

***

“Why didn’t you just tell Stephen to piss off?” Ginny asked, huffing when Neville’s only response was a shrug. “Fucks sake, you can take down a massive snake but you can’t-”

“It’s not the same,” Neville interrupted, forcing himself to relax his hold on the Knotweed. “I needed to take down the snake, I don’t need to tell Stephen to puffapod off.”

“You’re too nice.” It was Ginny’s version of an apology. It was also a good reminder of how easy it was not to fall back in love with her.

“I’m not nice, Gin,” he said, standing up and reaching around to crack his back. “I just can’t be alihotskied. Can we drop it? How was your date with Pansy?” A faint crash and a muffled curse let him know that the invisible person was still there.

“Oh,” Ginny screwed up her face. “Awful. Not really a date, as it turns out.”

“No?” Neville picked up a broom and went searching for the smashed pot.

“Nope.” Ginny wandered after him. “Turns out she wanted to apologise, you know. For the Carrows stuff.”

“Ah,” Neville winced in sympathy. “She sent me a letter not long after the battle. Bit embarrassing.”

“What did it say?”  
  
“Can’t really remember,” he shrugged.

It had been written in purple ink, a spiral curling through the P’s in Pansy and Parkinson. The rest of the letter was a bit of a blur, something about loosing her head in the battle, being scared of the Death Eaters. All fairly obvious as far as Neville was concerned. No sign at all of the woman who kept trying to pick fights on his behalf and laughed at his Muggle swearing.

“Did you write back?” Ginny asked.

“Think so. Something about how I appreciated the gesture, but that she was making herself sound like far more of an evil genius than she actually was.” Neville bent down to sweep up the pot, smiling as he heard two snorts of laughter.

“Nice,” Ginny laughed again. “She didn’t do that with me, just said what she’d done and said she was sorry.”

“And it wasn’t a date?” Neville decided not to examine why the knowledge that Pansy and Ginny’s trip to Hogsmeade was not a date pleased him so much.

“Not even slightly. It’s fine,” Ginny waved him off. “I think Harry and Draco wanted it more than we did.”

“Ah.” There wasn’t much more to say to that. Harry and Draco’s enthusiasm for Gryffindor-Slytherin unity was becoming rather intrusive. “You know Draco asked if I wanted to join the Eighth Year Quidditch Squad?”

“What?” asked Ginny, her forehead wrinkling in confusion. “Why?”

“No idea.”

“You hate Quidditch.”

“I do.”

“You fell asleep during the Ravenclaw-Gryffindor final.”

“I did.”

They had been moving around the greenhouse, gathering up cloaks and bookbags. As Neville stepped back to let Ginny slip past, he felt a small hand press firmly against his chest.

“Sorry,” he said, stumbling back.

“What?” Ginny was ready to go.

“Nothing. I, ah, I need to stay for a few extra minutes to... check... something.”

“Alright; see you at dinner.” She wandered up the hill to the castle.

“I am sorry,” Neville said, turning to the wall where the invisible hand had come from. “I forgot you were there. I didn’t mean to crowd you, I-” The invisible hand was back, one finger pressed firmly against his lips.

“I’m sorry, too.” The voice was soft, familiar in a way that all the Hogwarts accents were vaguely familiar. A jumble of Scottish ‘rrr’s’ and South London vowels. “I’ll leave you alone.”

“You don’t have to.” His lips moved against the finger, slipping over the soft pads. The finger immediately withdrew, a rustle and the banging of the greenhouse door his only answer.

***

News quickly got around the castle that Neville Longbottom had broken up with Hannah Abbott.

“It’s not a break-up,” Neville sighed when Luna and Ginny found him in Greenhouse Two. “We’re just not going to spend as much time together.”

“Ohhhhh,” Ginny drew out the word, her face smoothing with enlightenment. “You’re the arsehole here; did not expect that.”

“What?” Neville whirled around. “I’m not the arsehole, how am I the arsehole? I hardly-”

“I think what Ginny means is that ever since breaking up with you, you have become, in her mind, something of an underdog,” Luna cheerfully translated. “Therefore, she assumed that you were the one who was left broken-hearted, and is a little thrown by your callous behaviour towards Hannah.”

“It’s not callous,” Neville muttered. “I just told her that I wanted to spend a bit of time on my own.”

“She likes you, you big twat,” Ginny sighed. “I’m not saying that means you have to keep going out with her, but don’t act like you didn’t like her for a while.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“You are a little bit,” said Luna. “It must be difficult having everyone looking at you like you’re a hero, but you mustn’t worry about letting people down.”

“Well,” Ginny interrupted. “You could worry about that a tiny bit, just enough to make sure that she’s alright.”

“I get it,” Neville sighed. “If I admit you’re right, will you puffapod off so I can do some watering?”

They both nodded, promising to see him at dinner as they made their way out. Neville held his breath, listening for any sign of the invisible person. Nothing.

*** 

In the end, it was a juvenile Flitterbloom that unmasked the invisible greenhouse lurker.

Neville was delivering an earnest pep talk to a Snargaluff with self-esteem issues when a gasp alerted him that a Flitterbloom tentacle appeared to be wrestling an invisible opponent. Grabbing his wand and casting a Petrificus Totalus, Neville was too late to stop the Flitterbloom from stealing Pansy’s invisibility cloak.

“Oh,” said Neville, feeling rather awkward. “It’s you.”

“Yes.” Pansy’s hair was covering her face and the newly freed invisibility cloak was twisted in both her hands. Neville watched the silvery material slip back and forth across Pansy’s long pale fingers, making them flash visible and then invisible.

“Sorry about that,” Neville said, nodding towards the frozen Flitterbloom.

“Sorry about...” Pansy trailed off, her eyes fixed on the floor. She was, Neville realised, inching over towards the greenhouse door.

“You don’t have to go.”

Her head snapped up, a scowl firmly in place.

“I think I do.” The tremble in her voice undermined the way her dark eyebrows huddled together. “I’m sorry. I didn’t... I wasn’t... I’m not spying,” she spat the word.

“Right.” Neville miserably noted that Pansy was still moving towards the door. “I really don’t mind you being here,” he tried again.

“Are you going to tell everyone about this?” she asked.

Her hair had become slightly static from the cape, the dark strands rising into the air. It reminded Neville of Hermione’s angry cat, and he smiled at the image. Which was absolutely the wrong thing to do when someone asks you if you are going to humiliate them in front of the whole school.

“I see,” Pansy lifted her chin, doing nothing to make herself look less like a cat. “I hope you all have a good laugh about this, but you should know that I only wore the cape because I like gardening and I did not wish to engage in smalltalk with a...a...a plant obsessive who can’t even bring himself to use proper words when he’s cross, and... what are you doing?”

Neville was already halfway across the greenhouse, fighting to keep the smile off his face. It probably looked very sinister, he sternly reminded himself. Stop smiling and just-

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” he said, stopping a few feet in front of Pansy. “And if you want to keep coming down here, I won’t try to ‘engage in smalltalk.’”

“Oh. Oh, well how noble of you,” Pansy hissed. “Saving the pathetic Slytherin from social humiliation, deigning to share the greenhouse with such a, a-”

“Look. I’d quite like to kiss you,” he interrupted her. “But I don’t want you to think that you have to kiss me because I’m going to tell the school about you spying on-”

“It wasn’t spying; it-”

“Spying on me,” he raised his voice. “I’d already guessed it was you spying on Harry for Draco, I just didn’t know why you chose to stick around. But you did, and I like you quite a lot, either to garden with - although you are rather terrible at it,” he said, gesturing towards the five-hundredth pot she’d broken just an hour previously, “or to go out with, but you don’t have to do either of those things.” He lapsed into silence, very aware that he was still smiling and, rather wonderfully, that she was starting to smile back.

“Well.” Pansy shifted from foot to foot. “That’s good to know.”

“Yeah,” he shrugged.

“I wasn’t spying on you.” She took a small step towards him.

“Right. Except you were.” He took a deep breath as she dumped the cloak onto the nearest bench, without looking to see where it had landed.

“Flux,” It was a whisper, almost immediately swallowed as Pansy stretched up and brushed her lips against his.

It should have been breathless and lovely, a soft kiss in the quiet greenhouse. And then Neville started sniggering. Loudly. And snorting a bit.

“I’m sorry,” he giggled, desperately trying to catch his breath as Pansy glared at him. “I just realised how stupid that sounds. Flux. Sorry, I...” he giggled harder.

“Fuck you, Longbottom.” The words were vicious, hissed between Pansy’s own giggles. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to find yourself attracted to someone who keeps telling his friends to ‘puffapod off’? It is,” she laughed, shaking her head. “It is intolerable. You are intolerable.”

“Sorry about that.” He’d managed to get the worst of the laughter under control. “Do you want to try again?”

“Yes.” Pansy was still smiling as he leaned forward to kiss her properly. She smiled when he pulled back a few inches and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. She smiled when they left the greenhouse, with Neville holding her hand all the way up to the castle.

And Neville? He smiled a lot as well.


End file.
